The Great CD Listen Through - Part II, chunk 1

I'm continuing my great music listen through whilst getting set up to get some work done from home... I'll be keeping some notes as I go, but not to the extent I do when I'm not working. I won't be doing track by track notes, just impressions of the whole CD. It'll also be written a bit at a time, when I take a break from work, then compiled into a single post (the rest of this post, in fact). It may be a bit "bitty" to read as a result. I'll post what I have every now and then.

( Alabama 3 - La Peste )

( All About Eve - All About Eve )

( All About Eve - Scarlet and Other Stories )

A brief aside... I don't own the All About Eve albums "Ultraviolet" or "Touched by Jesus" - this is an omission on my part. I have set things in motion to rectify the matter. Unfortunately, this means that my planned CD clearout has actually lead to my CD collection growing by two. Oops. I should have realised this was going to be dangerous!

The Great CD Listen Through - Part II, Chunk 2

This is a "whilst doing other things" continuation of my great CD listen through.

I listen to music a lot whilst working, so here I'm taking a couple of minutes out after each CD to type up some thoughts and post them up. It's not as thorough as I would be if I was listening at a time other than when I was working... but if I did that then I probably wouldn't finish for years.

( All About Eve - Winter Words: Hits and Rarities )

( Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Purple Electric Violin Concerto )

( Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Ultraviolet )

I'm not doing very well at this "clearout" business. I've ordered another new CD (Ed Alleyne-Johnson's Symphony) and haven't trimmed anything out of the collection yet. I may have to downgrade that Age of Reason CD from an earlier post to the (currently empty) "free for all / charity shop" pile. Then again, the standard has been conspicuously high in those first few CDs. I suspect I'll hit a rich vain of embarrassing dross at some point.

The Great CD Listen Through - Part II, Chunk 3

This is a "whilst doing other things" continuation of my great CD listen through.

I listen to music a lot whilst working, so here I'm taking a couple of minutes out after each CD to type up some thoughts and post them up. It's not as thorough as I would be if I was listening at a time other than when I was working... but if I did that then I probably wouldn't finish for years.

At this point, I'm around halfway through the "A" section.

( Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Purple Electric Violin Concerto 2 )

Verdict: Keep

( Ed Alleyne-Johnson - Echoes )

Verdict: If it was a colour it would be BEIGE. Anyone want an inoffensive background music CD? I've got one I just don't think I'll listen to.

( Ed & Denyze Alleyne-Johnson - Fly Before Dawn )

Verdict: TO GO - let me know if I've somehow managed to sell you on it, and it'll be yours for free.

Yes, folks, I've managed to identify a CD that I want to get rid of... and another I could take or leave.


Next up:
It seems that the letter A is popular with the more mellow bands. Next up I'll be listening to three Amethystium albums - Odonata, Aphelion and Evermind.

The Great CD Listen Through - Part III

Having pushed through the great wall of Electric Violin, I'm now moving on to norwegian ambient/electronica/neo-classical. Seriously - that's what wikipedia says and it kind of fits - not in the sense of neo-classicial music, but in the sense of drawing on what would often be referred to as "classics" for their themes and inspiration.

I'm calling this Part III as part II Couldn't go on for ever. I'm done with work for the day now, but still sticking with the general album reviews rather than track by track.

( Amethystium - Odonata, Aphelion and Evermind )

Verdict: Keep

Meanwhile, I've found my sewing kit! I can repair my clothes again! Huzzah!

Darn! (a brief aside)

For a long time, I've modified and mended my own clothes. I have short legs, short arms and a neck so wide I could swallow planets whole. This has generally meant that throughout my life I've been forced to modify my own clothes. I just started doing it because I needed them to fit every once in a while.

Since nothing "off the shelf" fits me very well, I learned to do the basics pretty early on - taking up my trousers, shortening shirt or jumper sleeves... that kind of thing. Borrowing a sewing machine a while back was a godsend, because it meant I could take up a pair of trousers in about 5-10 minutes, including setting up the machine.

But there has been one thing that I've never known how to do. I never knew how to darn. This meant I could fix seams, or make new ones, or modify the length of various tube-shaped garment parts... but if I found a wider hole in a jumper or a sock then there wasn't much I could do. I worked out my own way of doing it which seemed to pretty much work, but it wasn't great and seemed a bit rough and ready. Whenever I asked if there was a better way, people suggested I should try darning it... but nobody ever told me how.

Today, I finally decided to look it up.

The great revelation? The way I'd been doing it? The way that I thought was a bodge job that I made up to cover for the fact that I don't know how to darn? That I've been doing for at least half my life?

It's called darning.